Greenwashing, Biofuels, Air Travel
December 24, 2022
by William P. Meyers

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Twice recently I have commented at the New York Times about how their promoting travel to cultural destinations in Europe helps kill the planet by generating excessive, unnecessary carbon dioxide (CO2) [See How to Travel the World While Putting Nature First and 36 Hours in London]. I have seen other people make the same type of comments. The vituperative, defensive responses from New York Times readers who enjoy the privilege of traveling are worth noting. Unfortunately they represent a large class of people, typically highly-educated, high-income people who do not like anyone suggesting their privileges should be curtailed. For them a trip to the Louvre, or the British museum, or a genuine fancy Italian dinner served in Italy itself, justifies sticking a (metaphorical) knife into a species or even their uneducated, poorer human beings stuck areas affected by drought, famine, or flooding caused by climate change.

My hope for banning, taxing or rationing air travel are pretty slim at this point. The lower middle class does not want to be inconvenienced when they want to visit relatives, get to Florida in winter, or somehow save up enough money for a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Europe. The elite may claim to be environmentalists, but while they are okay with shutting down coal mines and buying electric cars, they do not want to sacrifice any personal comfort or narcissistic indulgence.

To help them along there is greenwashing. In Washington State the government has passed a measure to cap and trade carbon (Washington State Climate Commitment Act). But (per my state representative Gerry Pollet) it does not apply to the airlines. It does not apply to transportation vehicles. He said it mainly applies to local businesses to weak to prevent it from passing or to be granted a loophole. If there were cap-and-trade on the airlines, as each year passed they would have to emit less carbon. The only way to do that would be to fly less. It would be an effective form of rationing.

The airlines know they are evil, but they to not want to give up their revenue and power. They have an argument for not being taxed or rationed or shut down. They claim they are going to switch to biofuel. Sounds good right?

I remember friends making biofuel or converting their cars to biofuel. That started about 30 years ago. If the airlines have not converted to biofuels in 30 years, they are not going to do it before civilization collapses due to climate change, famine, and a mass human die off that anyone who does an analysis can tell you is likely to happen in the next ten years. Fly until you die is their real program.

Keep in mind that biofuel produces about as much CO2 as petroleum-based jet fuel. How would they produce that much biofuel? By cutting down Canada's forests? By planting 50 million acres of corn in the Amazon basin, to distil into ethyl alcohol? They do not have a plan, it is pure bull, they are lying and they should be stopped?

But again, who will stop them? They are supported by the lunch-in-Paris makes me feel good crowd. By the wanta see the glaciers before they melt crowd. By the I am a better person if I am fluent in two languages crowd. By the airport and airline workers, the jetliner manufacturers like Boeing, by the cheap politicians, by the right-to-be-ignorant right wing. By just about everyone except a few old environmental geezers like me and a few young people like Extinction Rebellion who know their future is being destroyed every time a jet takes off from SeaTac and heads to London. In short, the nearly powerless.

Still, I will carry on. I know there are thousands of others who know what I know and would do what I would do. We may feel like little hobbits opposing the might of Sauron, or like the resistance to Hitler inside Nazi Europe. We must trudge on and hope people will be inspired to join us.

Close SeaTac Now.

Some major armies of evil (full list is much longer):

Boeing

Alaska Airlines

Air Canada

Delta Airlines

Air France

Emirates Airline

Air China

Japan Airlines

British Airways